


all that glitters IS gold

by a_real_archaeopteryx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: basically just a really long hufflepuff headcanon, hufflepuff hc, hufflepuff headcanon, i am just having so many hufflepuff feels, i ramble about hufflepuff when im drunk, im sorry, sweet golden hufflepuff from heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:31:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_real_archaeopteryx/pseuds/a_real_archaeopteryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so i really really love harry potter and i would love a marauders era series, or a retelling from rons pov or lunas or whatever.</p><p>but i really want to see the story from like, a random muggle born hufflepuff who is a few years older than the golden trio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all that glitters IS gold

**Author's Note:**

> so anyways im so sorry, but im having a lot of hufflepuff feels and im a little drunk and bored and im so so sorry, this is basically just a really long headcanon.

so i love harry potter so much and i would love a marauders era series, or a retelling of the books by ron or luna or whoever.

 

but i really want the saga from like a random muggleborn hufflepuff a few years older than harry. 

like this hufflepuff grows up in the muggle world and they just have small, unnoticeable magic. no big show with snakes or anything. like maybe they just  _always_  win at rock/paper/scissors. or maybe theyre like “wow, i cant explain it but i think it will rain tomorrow?” and their friends/family are like “what? it’s supposed to be sunny?” but sure enough it rains. 

and they get their hogwarts letter and that’s cool and everything, but theyre just from a middle class family with maybe some siblings, maybe their parents are divorced idk but they love each other. 

but they start at diagon alley and go shopping and ride on the train and make new friends and get absolutely no advance prejudices of any houses, they arent conditioned to worship gryffindor or hate slytherin or anything. and they get sorted into hufflepuff and theyre like “yeah!” cuz that cute person they saw in the next train compartment over is also in hufflepuff, or cuz madam sprout looks kinda like theyre grandma or cuz the ghost is being real chill and all the other ghosts are kind of being pompous assholes about their ghostyness. 

 

and their first year is fun, they really love some classes and really hate others and snape is grumpy but they never see him actually antagonize anybody. and dumbledore is kinda weird but he’s cool and gives people candy in the hallways. and they keep in touch with their pureblood friends/give telephone numbers to their muggleborn friends for over the summer. 

 

and their second year starts great, their friend cedric diggory is on the quidditch team. and maybe theyre queer/trans/genderfluid idk, or maybe their sibling or friend is but it doesnt really drive the story, it just is. and theres this pair of first years in gryffindor called the weasley twins and theyre super hilarious but everyone just kind of shakes their head like “those damn twins, i heard they made the portrait on the staircase by the 4th floor bathroom laugh so hard they cried” and that was about it. 

and third years sucks because hey, being thirteen sucks. they get to hogwarts sept 1st and everyone is like “omg harry potter is here!” and our hufflepuff is like “who??” and it’s like “harry potter, the kid from the history book?” and theyre like “oh” and they were kinda interested but then the kid is sorted into gryffindor and thats about it because they grew up as a muggle and entered the magical world during a peaceful time and so they dont know about death eaters or voldemort or war. and they take electives that we havent seen much of, like ancient runes or something. and dumbledore says something weird about the third floor but then again, last year he told me to thank merlin that i was born and raised to eat muggle candy and “LEMON DROPS ARE THE BEST OK” so that pretty much fits with everything else ive heard from him. and the new DATDA teacher is kinda skittish and he stutters a lot but so does my aunt and shes not that bad. and at the end of the year they hear some whisper about the new teacher and that kid harry potter and someone who know one will actually say the name of and theyre just too excited about summer to really care. 

 

and fourth year is cool because they finally got together with cute person from train from first year and theyre really happy. and something mildly upsetting happens to the janitors cat? and they skip dueling club to make out with cute train person down by the lake so they dont even hear about harry potter kid talking to snakes. but then a little while later something happens to one of the hufflepuff second years and thats upsetting because a) its a hufflepuff and an actual person, not a cat and b) justin is the boyfriend of a cousin of someone (cuz wizarding families are really big) in their year so obviously, everyone is upset for their friend too. and more people are attacked??? but our hufflepuff just keeps their head down and plays their cards smart and oh, the harry potter kid and one of the weasleys killed whatever it was and all the people are safe now and wow they did so well in their classes!

 

and then fifth year rolls around and the dementors board the train and yeah it sucks but it isnt like  _life threatening._  maybe the worst thing to happen to our hufflepuff is cute train person dumping them, or their grandpa dying when they were young or peeing their pants when they were 8. and its actually kind of exciting cuz cedric diggory and the rest of the quidditch team are doing hella great and we might win the cup this year! and the dementors make them shiver but not much else. sirius black doesnt bother them, because their family lives way south by the sea and hes heading north so whatevs. our hufflepuff will be safe at hogwarts, they know. and hagrid is teaching care of magical creatures now, and hes kind of a bad teacher but also kind of a good one and besides, our hufflepuff loves to spend time outdoors. 

 

and the summer before sixth year they get together with this really cute muggle who just moved in to the neighborhood and they dont tell them about magic at first but their muggle partner is totally cool about being long distance pen pals while our hufflepuff is at school. and something weird happened at the quidditch world cup this year, and there are words and pictures in the newspaper that our hufflepuff hasnt seen before and the word “muggle” comes up a lot but again, thats really far north and our hufflepuff and everyone they know lives south. all of that is soon forgotten, though, cuz its the triwizard tournament and a hufflepuff is one of the hogwarts champions! and so is that little harry potter kid but like...ok??? that kid is 14 and cedric is 17 and a prefect and got like a million o.w.l.s. and theres no way potter can win. and the dragons are fun and the yule ball is a blast! and their muggle sweetheart cant come so they go with a group of friends and dance with the foreign students and eat too much chocolate and its a good night. the lake is kinda boring but cedric technically won! go cedric! and the maze.. oh no. the maze. harry potter comes back dragging cedrics body. and the it hits our hufflepuff, hard. because cedric was their friend. the diggorys are crying and our hufflepuff doesnt even know how to react. theyve been to cedrics house for birthday tea and grew up along side him and maybe even had a crush on him and now hes just...gone. and the gryffindors are hysterical (because harry potter) and the ravenclaws are upset because a pretty ravenclaw girl had been dating cedric for quite a while now. the hufflepuffs, obviously, are beside themselves. they always get counted last and kind of laughed at for being so mellow and the hufflepuffs themselves laugh along because, hey, its totally true and now all of the sudden one of our star students/all around nice guy is...dead??? but the weird thing is the slytherins. the hufflepuffs dont have the same rivalry with the slytherins that the other houses do, and our hufflepuff probably has lots of slytherin friends. and the slytherins are so quiet. so so quiet. emotionless. until the next day our hufflepuff finds one of their slytherin friends crying in the bathroom and theyre like “its ok, im sad about cedirc too” and the slytherin friends sobs even harder. because it isnt about that. this is about my family, my parents and brothers and sisters and cousins. and the hufflepuff sits in that bathroom for a long time, holding their slytherin friend, as the slytherin talks. and our hufflepuff goes to lunch with heavy shoulders because now, they know. theyre in on the big secret. harry potter is saying things and dumbledore is saying things and the hufflepuff looks to their slytherin friends, “is this true???” and they dont agree or disagree, but after that their slytherin friends...arent their friends. 

 

but they kinda forget, over that summer, in the excitement about graduation and this awesome relationship with the muggle from last summer. and they lose their virginity and like literal fireworks appear in their room so they tell their muggle partner all about magic and about school and their 17 now so they show them a little magic and everything bad is completely forgotten about at their partners amazement and wonder at magic. and school starts and theres a lot of talk still about harry potter and the hufflepuff believes him, because of what their slytherin friend (ex friend) told them at the end of last year. and umbridge is awful, naturally, but its their last year and they arent doing anything DATDA driven anyways, they actually kinda want to get in to like the restaurant business or something, so it doesnt matter. and they spend their hogsmeade weekends apparating away to their love and spending their time lying on the beach drinking their parents liquor, not holed away in shitty pubs or secret rooms. and right at the end of the school year, they finally hear the name: voldemort. and it sends a shiver down their spine for some weird reason, but then n.e.w.t.s. are over and school is over and they get a job at a 5 star london restaurant (right down the street from the leaky cauldron/entrance to diagon alley, as it just so happens) as a pastry chef, and the head chef is a wizard too and so are some of the wait staff and the owners and lots of their clients are magical folks and lots are muggle, because its a 5 star restaurant in london. so they move to the big city with their sweetheart and they live in a crappy little studio flat and some days they dont have hot water and some days they fight but they always make up and life is perfect. 

 

and then, their sweethearts parents end up dead, somehow, dropped dead in their own kitchen during breakfast. but they didnt have a stroke, or a heart attack, but they cant have been murdered because all the doors were locked from the inside and there were no traces of anybody entering or leaving the house. the neighbors saw nothing. 

and their sweetheart is going to drive back home, to be with the rest of their family, and our hufflepuff will join them the next day after work.

except, the bridge goes out and the sweetheart drowns in the river. 

our hufflepuff is in shock. the boss gives them some time off of work, of course. and when the hufflepuff comes back, very shaken, their coworker very hastily covers up an old newspaper. but the hufflepuff finds it, and sees the bridge on the front page. sees it happening in a real time, moving photograph, in such clear detail that they can read the license plate of their sweethearts car just before it dissapears under the water. and on one of the inside pages, theres a little blurb with a picture of the parents house. and suddenly our hufflepuff is sixteen again, with a tear stained slytherin hanging around their shoulders. 

 

our hufflepuff and their coworkers have a long talk, that evening, after closing. one of the waitresses, who was a slytherin a few years ahead, has to leave. “my husband, my baby.” she says, clutching her growing belly. our hufflepuff knows that the waitress had been a little tense with her family, after the shotgun wedding, but her husband made her so happy and besides, she wasnt the first woman to ever concieve out of wedlock. but that wasnt it. “hes a muggle, my child might be a muggle.” and our hufflepuff hears the term blood traitor, and learns more about death eaters. but death eaters werent just masked villains anymore. they were parents and brothers and aunts. names were named and our hufflepuff is shocked. these are the names of friends. these are the names of houses that they have been to for dinner. the waitress leaves that night, and she tells no one where she is going. 

other people leave too, one or two more slytherins but mostly people from the other houses. 

the hufflepuff stays, though, and organizes bake sales and clothing drives and pen pal projects in their free time. everyone trusts a hufflepuff, and they use their position in society like the weapon that they now realize it is. because the slytherin families love their cooking, and remember when our hufflepuff used to come around for tea with their own children. the hufflepuff lies easily about their blood status. after all, they know just about every wizarding family alive today.  they know just the right names to drop to gain entry into even the malfoy house because lucius, despite his many other talents, knows only names and trophies but nothing of the people behind them. their son is so much younger than our hufflepuff, couldnt even pick them out of a lineup. our hufflepuff is safe. 

they dont learn much, because secrets are not as easliy opened as front doors and muffin baskets, but they learn enough. a cleverly timed bomb threat clears a primary school before an actual massacre can be carried out, several grocery bags dropped on the tracks of the underground shuts the trains off almost an hour and saves hundreds of people who had been headed to work in an office that was about to be attacked. they dont make it to Florean Fortescues on time, sadly, but all of the other muggle born business in diagon alley are long abandoned by the time the death eaters come calling. this works for some time and our hufflepuff is proud.

but then one day, it isnt enough. their blood status is found out and now they are on the worlds shittiest shit list. so our hufflepuff goes in to hiding, surprisingly easily. a few careful spells over some blank paper lands our hufflepuff a new name, new job, new everything. some simple potions (because our hufflepuff was always really good at potions, because of how close it was to cooking) take care of the age and appearance. our hufflepuff is hiding in plain sight, able to walk freely among wizards and muggles alike. but the death eater families are on lock down, and even though our hufflepuff has tried everything from personal nanny to hair stylist, they cant crack them. they cant stop the attacks on muggles or wizards. its depressing, and they want to quit, but the photo album of pictures of their sweetheart reminds them that even one life saved is better than nothing. 

 

its been about a year, but one night an old school friend suddenly turns up, holding what looks like a regular galleon. theres hope, they say, and our hufflepuff jumps at the chance to make a difference again. not minutes later, our hufflepuff finds themselves in a room at hogwarts they have never seen before, a room full of familiar faces. and harry potter, of all people, arrives and everyone cheers. and our hufflepuff cheers, because theyre excited and harry potter is so full of promise and he stands so tall and proud. 

 

then theres more waiting. our hufflepuff looks around the room and their heart sinks. they never did more than the minimum as far as defensive spells went. no, they dont remember stunning spells. no, they couldnt preform a shield spell. their friend begins to look a little uneasy. 

 

“potions, though. i was damn good.” the older ones who knew the hufflepuff agree. timidily, a small girl in the far corner of the room tells the group that  _she is also really good at potions._  and another student, and another. soon enough theres about seven of them, who pull together and scheme and “remember this? remember that?” and a friend of harry potters comes over and somehow pulls huge cauldrons and heaps of ingredients out of thin air. and so, led by our hufflepuff, the group begins to cook. nobody else pays them much attention but thats perfect, thats what our hufflepuff does best, is work behind the scenes. 

and the battle begins.

our little group, with their potions, take to the ramparts with their potions. its a nasty concoction, with a little bit of burning and a little bit of freezing but mostly, the effect is sleeping. it makes a small dent, poured down into the oncoming army, and soon more than a hundred soldiers are out of the battle, fast asleep. our hufflepuff is so proud. because these soldiers are death eaters and werewolves but theyre also people, who our hufflepuff knows. these are people who have made mistakes, or who have been forced to fight by family and friends. or by torture or the imperius curse. and probably most of them chose to fight by their own free will but  _they are still people._

and then maybe something happens. our hufflepuff ends up on the ground, in the middle of the fight. way out of their element. and our hufflepuff is injured. 

our hufflepuff lies on the ground, and a hooded figure stands above them, brandishing a wand-

and stops. 

our hufflepuff can see under the hood now, and its the slytherin friend from the bathroom, from years ago. the slytherin lowers their wand, eyes shining with tears. 

neither of them notice another figure coming at them from the side, the figure with a wand that will not falter. maybe they know the hufflepuff, maybe they dont.

theres a flash of light. it doesnt hurt. but the world doesnt go dark, it goes light. 

our hufflepuff stands up in the little train station from their little home town, empty but for one person. 

a kiss has never tasted sweeter.  


End file.
